Advancements in the field of television content packaging and distribution systems have led to a massive development of numerous technologies and broadcasting platforms that are revolutionizing the way consumer devices access and playout media content. Usually, broadcasting platforms refer to the types of networks that are used to deliver the media content to the consumers. Currently, the broadcasting platforms, such as analog terrestrial broadcast, digital terrestrial broadcast, direct-to-home satellite broadcast, cable, Internet Protocol (IP), and over-the-top television (OTT), compete and strive to increase their appeal by gaining and retaining the audience viewing the media content.
Modern web streaming protocols that support Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, such as HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), are implemented to support streaming of live content services, such as DIRECTV NOW℠, SLING TV℠ and PLAYSTAYION™ VUE, to consumer devices. Traditional service providers, such as COMCAST℠, also have set-top boxes capable of receiving both legacy broadcast distribution protocols, as well as modern web streaming protocols. However, such traditional service providers are constrained by the number of broadcast channels they can support on the legacy infrastructure and are more likely to allow more niche-based programming using Internet-based distribution.
Technically, such modern web streaming protocols break media content into numerous small segments typically less than 10 seconds in length. These protocols further implement a text-based file often referred to as a manifest that instructs the player what media segment to retrieve and play next. A Video-on-Demand asset, prepared for web distribution, has a sequence of short duration segments (these can be separate physical files or pointers (real or to be calculated) to the short media segments inside a larger file) as well as a manifest that lists all the video segments (or instructions for the player to be able to determine all the video segments) that make up the full length of the media asset.
Delivery of live content is also supported by these modern streaming protocols. In this case, new short content media segments are made available as soon as they are created. In some protocols, each new segment is added to the manifest while in others the player is provided the necessary information to calculate the next live segment. In the latter case, a signal in the media content itself is used to inform the player when the player needs to re-inspect the manifest for a change in content (media or other). The manifest file and/or content media segment can also include additional information to help the player transition smoothly between media content from different sources. This is used for creating a playlist of multiple media content files, or for interrupting media content with other content such as advertisements and then resuming the media content.
In traditional television distribution systems, a consumer joining a program in progress simply misses the beginning of the program. In today's television distribution, a consumer might have an option to use a DVR to record the program from the beginning. However, this recording option is available only if a DVR recording is pre-scheduled ahead of time. In the event, when such recording is not pre-scheduled, the state of the art does not provide any teaching to allow a user to catch-up with a program already in progress. Therefore, a system to generate an event manifest allowing a consumer to restart an in-progress program may be required, and quickly catch-up to the live point by viewing only the key events or highlights from earlier part of the live event.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present disclosure as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.